The Tide
by indelibles
Summary: The people in town call it simply, 'the madness', and it reminds her of the tide. Pulling her in, pushing her out, killing her slowly. But it wasn't always this way.


**Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games.**

**A/N: Written for the June Monthly Oneshot Challenge at Caesar's Palace.**

_0._

Eleven years before a girl who will grow up to witness the fall of the Capitol and meet a man she will love unconditionally is born, Samuel Cresta and Marie Nullen meet in front of a stall selling leather sandals.

Marie flashes Samuel a pearly white smile and moves on.

Samuel follows and asks her name. He asks her if she'd like to take a walk, and she says yes. They walk a lot after that.

And one year later, they sign some papers in front of the justice building, slip on regulated metal rings, and Samuel kisses the bride.

_1._

At one in the morning on Wednesday, May seventeenth, eight year old Ethan Cresta is woken by his father and given strict instructions before being pushed out the door.

He is to run the half mile to where his grandmother sleeps at the edge of Cod Bay and bring her back to their small house because his mother is having the baby.

Annette Cresta lurches out of bed at Ethan's knock. She nods, grabbing her grandson's hand and they head back to the Cresta's. Behind them the tiny shack which Annette frequents fades into the darkness until even the glowing white seashells hung around it have disappeared.

His mother has a little girl, born strong and healthy. She's a quiet baby, taking in everything with large sea green eyes and smiling at everyone.

Ethan lets her grasp his hand with little fingers, staring at the contrast between his tanned skin and hers, which has not yet even seen the light of day. He sits beside her and his mother as the sun rises, watching her first hours.

Marie names her daughter Annette Pearl Cresta after Samuel's mother. _You're going to grow up to be a wonderful person, Annette. My sweet Annie._

_Wednesday's child is full of woe, _whispers Annette, and Marie hushes her. The old rhyme means nothing to her, and she kisses her daughters tiny hand, her lips are curved into a smile.

_2._

The little baby grows quickly, turning five before they realize it. Annie, as she is now called, is just as in awe of her brother as ever, following Ethan around and collecting rocks off of the beach.

Ethan enrolls in the _Stormwatcher's Academy _half a mornings walk south from their house and soon proves best in his class. _Stormwatcher's _is one of the best training academies in the district, and Annie can't remember ever seeing her daddy with so much water in his eyes.

"It's all that damn smoke in the air from your mother's stew," he says, and claps Ethan on the back.

"Momma?" Annie asks.

"What is it, Annie?" Marie asks, idly picking a piece of fish bone out of the stew.

"Will I ever get to fight the way Ethan does?"

Her mother pats her back. "Someday, when you're older, you'll be just as good as him. My brave warrior children, you'll be the very best. I promise you will."

From then on, Ethan lets Annie fight with him on the beach, duels with sticks that always end with her huffing in defeat and him laughing as he pulls her back to her feet.

When she's not 'fighting' with Ethan, Annie likes to watch the waves lap against the shore.

The water is a clear blue where they live. Sometimes when Annie comes with her mother into the center of town to pick up supplies, they go past beaches that have been ruined by people and their garbage, where the water is a murky brown and her mother warns her not to swim in.

So Annie sticks to the stretch of sand and pebbles in front of their little house and giggles when crabs crawl over her legs.

Sometimes she giggles when there are no crabs too, but shhh. Don't tell anybody _that. _

_3._

When Annie is eight, her parents let her begin at _Stormbringer's. _Children usually aren't allowed until they're nine or ten, but her brother doing so well leads them to let her be an exception.

It's unfair, but Annie isn't going to protest. This is where she's wanted to be as long as she can remember.

They start her off with the bows, where she has no luck, and the same happens with her brother's weapon, the spear. But when her hands clasp around a pair of throwing knives, a shudder seems to go down her spine, and after she's hurled them into the dummies (even if the knives did land in the knee cap and thigh, respectfully) her blood is positively _singing._

There's a beauty in the way it feels to pull the curved knives out of the dummy, something lovely in the burst of fake but strikingly red blood that blooms on its pale canvas skin.

Almost two years pass before something unthinkable happens.

Ethan's been feeling sick all week, but he trains anyway. If he wants to volunteer at the next reaping, he protests, he needs to train as much as possible. His work with the sword is impeccable, and he can use nearly any other weapon almost as good, so he's been practicing his agility.

And then his fingers slip on the bar he's been climbing, and he falls.

At first Annette says he'll never be able to walk again, maybe never wake up, but he opens his eyes and she says that her medical training was never very reliable anyway.

He regains use of his legs, but from his knee down on his left side, he can't feel anything, and all dreams of the games are crushed. At the reaping a boy from the other side of the district volunteers.

Annie drops out of _Stormbringer's _after that. She may love the art of fighting and preparing to kill, but she loves her brother more, and she knows that it hurts him to see her doing what he can never do again.

She spends more time helping out on her father's boat, _The Marie. _She mends nets, and Annette teaches Ethan how save a life rather than take it.

Their lives are thrown out of order, and Annie adjusts. She befriends a boy, Nolan, who's been helping on _The Marie_, and she goes back to the ocean as the tide comes in.

_4._

Annie has only days left before she turns eighteen and she's standing in the group of girls in front of the stage.

"Annie!" a girl whispers, grabbing her hand, and she turns to see a girl with blonde hair and a gleeful, pixie-like face behind her. _Rhea, _her mind supplies, and Annie smiles.

"Hey, Rhea. Do you know if anyone's volunteering this year?" Annie asks. As far as she knows, Rhea still attends _Stormbringers. _

"Uh, I think some girl from the eighteens class, Michaels or something might be volunteering, but I'm not sure."

Annie nods. A volunteer ready means that even if you're eligible, as long as you're young enough, you're safe.

The room becomes silent, and Annie realizes she's zoned out again (shhh, no one mention how often that happens) and that the escort Meena Summer is about to read the name. Meena has read the names every year since Annie was thirteen. Before that there was another man, but he made an unsavory comment about the President, and he hasn't been seen since.

"Annette Cresta," Meena Summer breathes, her tone almost reverent, as she sets the slip gently to the side.

_Oh._

Shoulders back, facing forward, a slight, confident smile on her face, Annie walks up to the front, and shakes the Meena's hand.

"Would you like me to ask for volunteers?" Meena asks, and Annie takes the microphone from her.

"No volunteers, please. And it's not Annette. Just Annie." She flashes a bright grin at the crowd and saunters to the side of the stage as Meena digs around in the bowl.

"Nolan Reef," Meena says in the same hushed tone, every word sounding as though she's talking to a god, and if you look close enough maybe you can see the exact moment when Annie's smile drops and her face becomes horror stricken.

_No. Not him. _Not Nolan, with his freckles and brown eyes and the way he smiles. Not her best-only, really- friend.

He walks up to the stage, trying to look brave, but he's only fifteen and not an actor. She can see the fear in his eyes.

"Any volunteers?" Meena asks. She doesn't bother questioning him, this little boy.

There is nothing but silence, then Nolan flinches as a sob echoes in the silence. Near the back, Annie can see that Nolan's mother's face is pale, and she looks wildly around, as though willing someone to volunteer.

"_Please,_" the woman shrieks. "Save him! Save my son! _Please!_"

The peacekeepers push her back, and Annie shakes Nolan's hand once, squeezing it reassuringly.

They reach the justice building just moments later, having shaken hands and been introduced, and Annie sits on a couch the green of sea foam. She pulls her knees up to her chest and waits, eyes dry.

When the door opens, her mother and father come in and hug her. They tell her to win this thing, to use her knives and come back alive. They call her their little girl, their victor, and they say good bye. She doesn't like the good bye. It's too final.

Ethan comes next, clapping her on the back. He gives her advice that she doesn't need and a pep talk that she does need.

He tells her that she'll be alright, and she pretends that she doesn't see the anger in his eyes. He stopped liking the Games years ago, though he'd never admit it. His enthusiasm towards the Capitol slowly went sour as he realized he would never be a victor, or even a tribute, and now there is nothing but resentment and hatred for the people who prep them and tell them they'll be great only to cheer as they die. None of this was ever said out loud, but Annie knows. She sees.

Annie understands, really, but she can't convince even herself that there wasn't a hint of excitement when Clytie called her name. A thrill ran through her body, and with adrenaline fueling her words, she had said 'no volunteers'. But she'll win, and Ethan believes in her too.

He gives her a bracelet with a little pink sea shell on it and when he leaves, it's with just a cheery _see you later!_

She and Nolan meet their mentors on the train. Finnick Odair, the boy who won when he was fourteen, and Mags, the woman who won when the hunger games was a novelty, something they didn't know would go on forever.

She says hello to the people who will teach her to survive as the train begins to speed through the district_. _Soon District Four will be behind them, disappearing into the distance. Maybe she'll never return.

_5._

Annie's stylist is a tall woman with blue hair that goes to her knees and huge, yellow eyes who can't be more than thirty. She's wearing a short, black lace dress with neon purple gloves, and as she plays with Annie's hair, she introduces herself as Clytie.

"Your partners stylist, Marco, and I have your outfits all figured out. We just need to get them sized properly, so while we wait for that, I'll start on your hair!" Clytie exclaims.

She brushes it quickly, and as she styles it, Annie thinks of home and of Ethan and her parents, and her grandmother, and even Rhea. There is a chance that she will never see them again, and even if she does, she will never see Nolan.

When Clytie has finished, the back of Annie's hair is in an elegant twist, while the front falls loose in a pile of soft waves. Clytie has mixed sparkles and what appear to be tiny pearls into her hair, and the green of her eyes is emphasized by the eyeliner Clytie has applied, her lips dark red. She looks like an ocean queen, beautiful and dangerous, and nothing like herself.

Clytie helps her into the long blue dress, letting the white tulle at the bottom fall around her like sea foam. She gets to see Nolan, then, his hair ruffled and just as with her costume, his clothes looking like the waves crashing against the shore every time he moves.

They stand together on a chariot drawn by pure white horses, and stand steady as it pulls forward. Ahead they can hear cheering, and soon they are in front of the crowd, trying not to let their expression change as the Capitolites cheer.

When the chariots have done their rounds and the Capitolites have drunk in the sight of their tributes, the horses stop and Clytie helps Annie off the chariot. Marco grabs Nolan's arm to steady him as he jumps down, and Annie internally winces as Nolan relaxes under his stylist's hand. He trusts far too easily. He just doesn't want to believe that the world is a bad place, and she can't blame him, because, really, who wants to learn that awful truth?

She won't be the one to tell him.

Nolan and Annie sleep in huge beds with soft sheets that night, and when they wake the aroma of a table laden in food greets them. The people in the Capitol can afford to squander their riches on pointless things like twenty kinds of syrup for the pancakes while even in District Four, one of the more well-off districts, Nolan's family will never taste anything half as rich.

_6._

One week passes, seeming to go by faster than an afternoon on _The Marie _back home. Annie and Nolan train, and she pays special attention to how well he does with a bow, and the way that her knives always land right where she aims. They get scores, and she figures that eight and nine are pretty good.

The gong rings and the games begin. They join with the careers, the two from district one (a boy who likes to inflict as much pain upon any tribute he can find before leaving them to die alone and a girl who giggles as she slits the little boy form two's throat) and the tall girl from two. The careers hunt well, until they don't. And then there are nine tributes left, and they turn.

The boy from one-Annie doesn't remember his name, and doesn't really want to-waits until two has stabbed his district partner before cutting her down. Then he turns around, and throws the axe he's used for every kill. It spins oh-so-prettily in the air, catching the sunlight beautifully, and she watches it hit its mark. Then something clicks, something is wrong, something snaps, and _breaks inside her. _

And then a boy's head rolls to her feet. Dimly, she hears screaming, and it takes her a while to realize that she's the one making the noise. _What happened to Nolan? _She wonders, before giggling. How could she forget? Nolan lost his head. If she looks down she'll see that his pretty eyes are dim now. But she doesn't look down. She runs faster than she's ever run before, and when she can't runner any longer, she collapses on the cold ground and drags herself behind a rock.

She stays there for one, two, three days before a parachute drifts down beside her, and still she doesn't notice the food right beside her hand or the gnawing hunger in her stomach. All she can feel is emptiness, a hole inside her, and she's not sure what it was caused by, but she knows it was bad.

Another day passes, and that's when the water comes. It floods into the arena from the west side, opposite Annie, and with dull eyes she watches it come towards her in a huge waves. When it reaches her, she feels the air go out of her body and then she floats up to the surface. _Boom! _She splashes, and remembers playing in the water what seems like years ago. _Boom! _

Hours pass, and she floats on her back, watching the sky. In the arena, the sky is always red no matter what time, and so she closes her eyes so she won't have to see it. The color reminds her too much of something- something bad, something red and hurting and it's on the tip of her tongue-_Boom!_

"The Victor of the seventieth Hunger Games, Annette Cresta!"

Annie opens her eyes and watches something descend form above her. "It's just Annie. Not Annette."

_Nolan's the only one allowed to call me that. _

_7._

It takes her over a month to remember what happened on the day that the Nolan died, and it takes even longer for her to fathom that he's really gone.

She doesn't get out of bed for weeks after she remembers, even though the only thing she ever dreams about is him-well, his head.

_8._

Annie's family move in with her. Her mom and dad and Ethan, all sharing her nice new house. Even her grandmother takes over the space in front of the fireplace because they want to be as close to her as possible. Maybe, they all hope, it will help her. Every day when they go out to fish, Ethan will take her hand and lead her down with them so that they can sit with their legs in the water and pick up the prettiest shells they can find.

But then when her parents are out on _The Marie, _something happens. A freak fire on the little boat and it sinks. Her parents sink with the boat and after that, Annie doesn't go near the sea any more.

_9._

The 'madness', the as the people in town say, that has overcome her is like a wave that washed over her the minute Nolan stopped breathing. It's like the sea, filling up her lungs so that she can't breathe and all she can feel is pain and confusion, and it never goes away. As though she lay down on the beach and the tide came in right over her and it never went out. She dreams of Nolan still, and of the other dead children. She killed four, and she hears their screams in her head. They scream so loud that she can't hear herself think, so she covers her ears to block them out and when that doesn't work she screams loud enough that the voice she can hear is her own.

When Annette hears her granddaughter screaming in the middle of the night, she gets up and walks to Annie's room. She holds the sobbing girl until she falls back asleep before going to make herself some tea. "That girl." She says to herself as she pours the hot water. "She's had enough woe for a life time, our Annie. Our sweet little Wednesday girl."

_10._

He knocks on the door the next day, the tall man with the bronze hair, and Annette thinks that he must have been born on a Monday, because no one has a fairer face than Finnick Odair.

"Hello," he says. "I was Annie's mentor before the Games and I was wondering if I could see her. Just to, uh, see how she's doing."

Annette smiles then because Wednesday's child may be full of woe like her poor granddaughter, but it's a Sunday, her favorite day of the week and the sky is blue and if Finnick Odair is someone who might help Annie, who's she to turn him away?

"She's upstairs," Annette says, and in her bedroom Annie watches for the millionth time as her best friend dies.

She stares up at the white ceiling and just for a moment, it looks red. Then Finnick Odair opens her door, and the tide comes out.

(It will come back in eventually of course, but it always does. And just for now, _maybe_, she can feel okay).


End file.
